Shortly after graduating from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, Justin Cox made his way up to Washington DC in pursuit of a girl. While six hundred miles may not seem like a lot, this was a very big deal for a kid that grew up in Tennessee with no plans of ever leaving.

Life in The Nation’s Capital was pretty great – after all the girl ended up being THE girl. However, there was another love brewing in Justin’s life (craft beer) and once again, he would feel compelled to take another huge risk (starting a brewery) to see if there was a there…well, there.

For Cox, brewing started as an at-home passion that over the years had grown into an obsession. While in pursuit of learning how to craft different styles of beer from fellow home brewers, Justin found himself fully immersed in a local beer community that (at the time) was still without a local brewery to proudly call their own – a problem he intended to solve.

While on a bike ride in early 2013, Justin discovered a small warehouse in Ivy City, an industrial neighborhood located just north of the H Street corridor (the Atlas District). At the time, very few people thought of Ivy City as “up and coming”; however, Justin knew that with the right team and a lot of hard work, a local brewery whose mission was to simply bring people together over delicious craft beer would be successful. Within a matter of weeks, a lease was signed, the first tanks were ordered, and Atlas Brew Works was born.  

We believe that being a good environmental steward is everyone’s responsibility. Since August of 2015, Atlas Brew Works has been a 100% solar-powered brewery.

While we love beer, we don’t love the energy-intensive nature of the brewing process. By using solar, we can offset much of our carbon footprint.

You can read more about our move to solar in the Washingtonian and on doee.gov (Department of Energy & Environment).